After a plumber came back to re-clog a pipe over a contested bill, a Thai restaurant and a plumbing company in Indiana are at odds with each other.
Thai Bistro & Bar operations manager Jesse Sanders told WFIE that their Evansville restaurant recently called Heavrin Plumbing to clear out a grease trap that was clogged. The first bill was $235. Three days later, though, the clog came back, so Sanders called Heavrin Plumbing again. WFIE reports that the plumber came back after hours to do the second job, which is why the new bill was $390.
Sanders told The Independent in a statement that the restaurant didn’t pay the bill right away because they wanted to know why they were charged twice for the same thing.
Heavrin Plumbing came back the next day and re-clogged the grease trap with a balloon, telling the restaurant they wouldn’t take it out until the bill was paid, according to WFIE.
“We never said we wouldn’t pay; we just wanted to be clear.” “The same problem came back soon after the first service, and we thought it was reasonable to question whether the return was due to the quality of the work, since this was our first clog in almost a year,” Sanders told The Independent.
“I’m sure we could have worked something out if we had had enough time to think about it and talk about the bill,” he said. “Especially since we’ve always paid him in the past.”
Joel Heavrin, owner of Heavrin Plumbing, told WFIE that the company doesn’t offer guarantees on drain cleaning.
Heavrin said, “I don’t have a magic wand I can wave and get rid of all the trash and grime in the drain line.” The thing we can do is snake it and make sure it’s open and working right. That’s what we did.
Even so, the kitchen didn’t understand why the pipe got clogged again.
As Sanders told WFIE, “the next day we got a text message saying that he was on our property.” “He put a balloon in our grease trap and won’t take it out until we pay.”
WFIE says the plumber told Sanders that he was going for the weekend in an hour.
Sanders also said, “If we left the balloon in there, it would fill the restaurant with dirty water from the grease trap.” “We would have had to shut down for the most part.”
It was known for the business to pay late in the past, Heavrin told WFIE. In a Facebook post, the eatery denied this claim.
“All of our bills were paid.” The restaurant says in its statement, “We operate on NET 15 or NET 30 terms, which means that invoices are paid by the due dates. This includes the plumbing invoice, which is on a Net 15 basis.” “Nothing is due or up to date.” Nothing is late, and if proof is needed, I’m happy to give it.
WFIE says that Sanders called the police and asked them to help settle the dispute. The Evansville Police Department said that small claims court is usually where these kinds of cases are heard, but Heavrin said he didn’t want to go that far.
He says, “To be honest, it wasn’t worth it for me to go to court over it.” “It wasn’t worth my time for me.”
The plumber was able to clear the clog, and the restaurant paid the bill, but wrote on it “paid under protest.”
“As a small business owner, I think we had every right to question a charge that didn’t seem fair,” the restaurant said. “We weren’t trying to start a fight; we were just asking for things to be fair.”
